drewbarb
picnic like it's 1999
The only 50mm Summicron I have is the DR which I inherited along with my M3. I love the 50mm focal length, and now own several, from the old Canon LTM f1.2 (which I bought from you more than 15 years ago!) to the new Zeiss C-Sonnar f1.5, and a collapsible f3.5 Elmar.
Each of these lenses are lovely in their own way, and I pull them out for specific uses. The Elmar is the lightest and most compact, and the Canon f1.2 and the Sonnar are great for shallow depth of field portraits and such where I want the vignette or bokeh effects. But as an everyday, any subject, all kinds of light, carry everywhere/do everything lens, the Dual Range Summicron is my go-to. It has a lovely, very sharp rendering, especially stopped down- but it's not super sharp, almost clinical like some modern lenses. Most of the time I have black and white negative film in my camera, and when shooting negatives I don't want super high contrast on my film. I will adjust the contrast in print or in the computer to suit each image. You can always add contrast, but if it's high contrast to begin with because of the lens or the developer there's only so much detail you can recover.
Sometimes I think I'd like to add a Rigid or a V4 'cron to my kit, just to have a lighter weight Summicron; but the weight is the only real reason I'd want a different 50mm 'cron. For me that's not really enough of a reason to own two of them; optically the DR does everything I want it to. If I shot chromes much these days (like if Kodachrome were still available...sigh...) I might want something with a little more bite to it; but I find lower contrast lenses are ideal for making negatives, and the DR is all I could need for that.
Each of these lenses are lovely in their own way, and I pull them out for specific uses. The Elmar is the lightest and most compact, and the Canon f1.2 and the Sonnar are great for shallow depth of field portraits and such where I want the vignette or bokeh effects. But as an everyday, any subject, all kinds of light, carry everywhere/do everything lens, the Dual Range Summicron is my go-to. It has a lovely, very sharp rendering, especially stopped down- but it's not super sharp, almost clinical like some modern lenses. Most of the time I have black and white negative film in my camera, and when shooting negatives I don't want super high contrast on my film. I will adjust the contrast in print or in the computer to suit each image. You can always add contrast, but if it's high contrast to begin with because of the lens or the developer there's only so much detail you can recover.
Sometimes I think I'd like to add a Rigid or a V4 'cron to my kit, just to have a lighter weight Summicron; but the weight is the only real reason I'd want a different 50mm 'cron. For me that's not really enough of a reason to own two of them; optically the DR does everything I want it to. If I shot chromes much these days (like if Kodachrome were still available...sigh...) I might want something with a little more bite to it; but I find lower contrast lenses are ideal for making negatives, and the DR is all I could need for that.
